


Narrative Causality - Toontown (BOOK ONE)

by Adam_Skelecoot



Series: The Imagiverse Chronicles [2]
Category: Disney's Toontown Online (Video Game), Homestuck, Original Work, The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anthropomorphic, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Death, Evacuation, Fear, Gen, Genocide, Horror, Metafiction, Refugees, Robots, cosmic horror, narrative causality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 06:30:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19193578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adam_Skelecoot/pseuds/Adam_Skelecoot
Summary: Toontown was once a place of peace and joviality. Now, it will be subject to an interstellar horror that it was not prepared for, and Jack Quackers, along with his sister, will be a witness to the war of the worlds.A story about stories, and their importance in the realm of fantasy.NOTE: It is recommended to read the introductory essay of this series before reading this story, so that you have a basic understanding of the overall setting.





	1. Prologue

The many sects and cults of the Imagiverse tell of many artifacts, hidden under moss and stone, or within sunken cities long forgotten, or floating within the deep gulfs of space. The Hands, a plentiful if seclusive species of druids, dedicate themselves to the Maker, and, to that extent, those artifacts which, by their association with the Creator of the Imagiverse, hold great power. Within hidden and time-worn tomes, they tell of objects that formed from the Maker’s restless dreaming, non-Euclidean oddities which commune with hidden but powerful energies.

 One artifact of note is the Maker’s Eye, a perfect sphere now known to be comprised entirely of Narrativium, the element of which stories are made. Few people outside the sect of the Hands know of the Eye, consisting purely of Jonathan C. Skelecoot, Governor of the Underworld city Old Albion and terrier of knowledge, and those he tells its tale to.

 The Hands say that, at a time of cosmic strife, the Maker’s Eye will Open, “and the sleeping God will witness, and change, those tales that inhabit the worlds of His children”.

 As a matter of fact, in some offshoots of what is known as the Alpha timeline, this has already happened. In one, for instance, the S.S Victoria, piloted by John Skelecoot and crewed by the Chosen Few and a group of other unnoteworthy individuals, came across the Maker’s Eye, in an arid world inhabited by the Technicoloured Elves of Zol’hak and their temple guarded by the plasma ball-headed being known as Cognitix, and it made their journey near-terminally interesting indeed. It would seem that the Opening of the Eye, across the supposedly infinite expanse of time, is, as they say, a universal constant.

 In the Alpha timeline, it didn’t even need to be brought into the Centre. It simply appeared, flying through space from an indeterminate location within the Edge, trailing a blue mist behind it. Where it landed, strange occurrences took place, following hidden laws forgotten by the modern age, ranging from peculiar but innocent to catastrophic and deadly.

 This is the tale of the first world to be visited. 


	2. The Eve of the War

Toontown. Home of the Imagiverse’s pranksters and tricksters, of bouncing hydrants and grinning buildings. Those from a less whimsical background would likely find the latter disturbing, but then again, they never grew up in Toontown.  From a birds-eye view, it would be interesting to note that, between the acres of plains and hillocks that are occupied by the many houses of the Toons, identical towns span across the remaining land, with the exception of the four corners, which house the humongous Cog HQs, home to the Toons’ rivalling power, the Cogs. Each town has a nautical, musical, nocturnal, flowery and arctic district, with a central district which houses the local mayor. Speckled within each town are the buildings of the Toon Resistance, led by the fearless leader Lord Lowden Clear, who ensure the safety of the Toons against the mechanical menace.

Despite the all-present Cog threat, Toontown is a place of peace. Almost completely unaware of the dangers that lurk outside their colourful world, the Toons never held fear for mortality or oblivion. It is an almost well-known fact that a Toon is almost completely immune to fatal injuries, which allows more daring acts of silliness to be accomplished; where a falling safe would leave a red splash where any other sapient once stood would only flatten a Toon, who would eventually right themselves and finish off their stunt with a ta-daah. As such, it is almost impossible to kill a Toon, except using a mythical substance known as Dip, said to be the eraser fluid of the Creator with a Pencil, otherwise known as “Disney”.

In Gulp Gulch, one of these identical towns, strutting with bouncy confidence, Jack “The Ducky Boy” Quackers, a special kind of sea-green Toon, was making his way to Toontown Central after receiving an old-fashioned telegram from Loony Labs, the scientific group of Toontown responsible for all known Toon gadgetry, asking for his expertise. It would be beneficial at this point to note that the expertise in question is in relation to outerworldly phenomenon, as Jack is one of the Chosen Few, a ragtag group of individuals cherrypicked by the ancient Creators to defend the Imagiverse from otherworldly threats. Walking across the central bridge over the pond towards Toon Hall, Jack whistled a jolly tune as he sauntered into the Hall, passing the eccentric Silly Meter, casting a brief glance at portraits of past inventors as he walked down several corridors and up a flight of stairs into the observatory built into the Hall.

To the background noise of fizzes and whizzes, the chimp Doctor Ogglevy leaned into the visor of the great telescope that looked out into the stars. What he was observing must have been worrying, as he did not notice when the door opened behind him. He did not notice when Jack awkwardly coughed to get his attention. An ear merely twitched when Jack said, “Ogglevy?”

Without much choice, Jack walked up to the prone doctor and tapped him on the shoulder. The figure straightened up with a start, banging his head onto the top of the visor, groaning as he rubbed his abused cranium. He turned towards the newcomer, waiting patiently for the stars to stop spinning, before the two ducks swam into focus and became Jack. “Ah, Jack,” he said unsteadily, adjusting the spindly magnifying apparatus on his glasses. “Thank goodness you’ve come. Here,” as he moved the visor towards the Toon. “Have a look and tell me what you see.”

Leaning into the visor, Jack looked into the telescope. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just blackness speckled with stars and the odd world. After a while, though, he soon realised that one of the stars was just slightly larger than the others. After another while, it seemed to emit more light for a brief moment.

“Well, I thee a falling thtar,” Jack replied, as usual having difficulties with his esses due to his beak. “At leatht, I _think_ that’th a thtar.”

“That’s what I initially thought,” said Ogglevy. “However, on closer inspection, I realised that it is in fact a small, spherical object, travelling with extraordinary speed towards Toontown. I’m sure you’re familiar that falling stars are, in fact, lumps of rock that occasionally breach the world’s atmosphere and, if big enough- “

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack interrupted. “I get it. Tho we’ve got a bluithh ball flying in thpace?”

“I just wondered if you knew what it is,” said Ogglevy. “Given your experience with the outside Tooni- excuse me, universe.”

“Well, you’d have to talk to my pal John on that,” Said Jack. The pal in question is the de facto leader of the Chosen Few, Jonathan C. Skelecoot, who acts as the brains of the group and is often relied on to know everything. “He’th probably got thome book that talkth about falthe falling thtarth.”

“I’ll surely try to contact him the next moment I have. Before you go, I’d like you to put your ear onto here.” Beside the visor was an odd device that looked rather like a padded plunger. “Maybe you’ll gain clarity from the _sound_.”

Jack looked at Ogglevy suspiciously, which is a common expression to wear when talking to a scientist of negotiable sanity. Nevertheless, he put the side of his head onto the weird plunger thing and waited. Eventually, amongst the cosmic background noise, he heard something strange, like a glass theremin being played. If it was to be transcribed, it would have sounded like this:

_WEE-OOO, Wee-ooo, wee-oooooooo........_

Jack stood there, rigid with an unwelcome feeling. For some undiscernible reason, those series of sounds triggered an unpleasant movement in his gut and stiffened his spine. He knew that, consciously, there shouldn’t be anything terrifying about that sound. Then again, his gut says otherwise.

The feeling, however, was easily shaken off. Straightening up, Jack cleared his throat and turned to Ogglevy. “Nope, not ringing any bellth here, unfortunately. Any ideath on when it’ll land?”

“Well, with a rough estimate on its current speed and distance, I wager that it will arrive next morning.”

Jack stood there for a moment, looking up through the open hangar door through which the telescope looked into the cosmos, before turning back to Ogglevy with what he hoped was a reassuring expression. “Well, don’t worry, doc. The chanceth of anything dangerouth coming from thpace are a m- “, He stopped, remembering too soon, from experience with the weighted hand of fate and chance, that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten. “- are remote,” he finished lamely. On that note, he left through the door, leaving Ogglevy, his worries only half dispelled, returning to the visor.


	3. Home

After his visit to Toon Hall, Jack spent the journey home pondering, going down streets that were patrolled by the stiff-motioned Cogs who aimed to convert Toontown into a corporate wasteland. Before he was Chosen, he was certain that these mechanical men were the most dangerous things that could exist; they stood against the very fibre of Toon existence, which runs, down to its genetic blueprints, on joviality and practical jokes. Indeed, it is well-known that the worst state for a Toon was sadness.

After he was Chosen, though, he was given an unnerving clarity on the outside universe, which runs on more broad laws, if you could call them that, and if you consider the Imagiverse as a universe that runs on laws. For one thing, filibusters and pink slips weren’t the worst things to be inflicted on someone. From the generally mundane dangers such as lethal weaponry, the type that Toons are unfamiliar with compared to their gags, to more esoteric horrors which occupy the nooks and crannies of space-time, Jack realised that, in the face of cosmic threat, Toontown was wildly ill-equipped to defend against any external invasion.

This train of thought ran through to the moment he reached his estate, between Blam Canyon and Thwackville, where he would have a fifty-fifty chance to see his sister, Jill. It wasn’t uncommon to find himself alone in the house, while she was out smashing more Cogs than he ever put the time into smashing. While he was pursuing his god-gifted career of fending off eldritch horrors, she was accelerating through her gag arsenal, sharpening her japing skills in the hopes of becoming a Resistance Ranger. Since her superiority and higher enthusiasm for fighting the Cogs was no different before he was Chosen, Jack’s relationship with Jill was more or less a typical younger-brother-older-sister scenario.

The door was fully shut when he arrived, a good sign which meant that she hadn’t set up a bucket-full-of-whitewash trap for him, a trick which thankfully occurred with less frequency during their later years. Upon further inspection of their small, one-story house, it was evident that Jill was still out fighting Cogs. Shrugging to himself, as a Toon always puts on a show even if they were stranded on an island alone, Jack sat down on the armchair facing the fireplace, stood back up, reached down to find the newspaper that was left on the seat-

“ _Freeze, thucker!_ ”

Jack let out a yelp and fell onto the mat that stood just in front of the fireplace. Behind the armchair, he could hear a snicker. He turned towards Jill, who was pointing a water gun at him, holding back her laughter.

“I thought we were done with thith ‘thneakin’ up on me’ buthnithh!”

“Yeah, but I wath bored,” Jill said simply, putting down the gun. “Tho, what did Toon Hall want with you?”

“Eh, thome thort of falling thtar heading towardth Toontown. At leatht, it _might_ be. I doubt it’th anything _too_ out of the ordinary.”

“Well, we don’t get many falling tharth,” said Jill, taking the newspaper and sitting on the armchair. “Be funny if it hit a Cog, though.”

Jack snorted. “How’th it going with the Toon Rethithtance?”

Without taking her eyes on the newspaper, Jill said nonchalantly, “Got a few medalth for thothe buildingth I took down. Altho took that CEO down a peg, may he thtay a Flunky for more than ten minuteth. Would love to thee where they’re churning out thethe Thenior Cogth and throw a monkey wrench in there.”

“Well, you’re thertainly a valuable player in the Toon-Cog War.”

Jill put down her newspaper, looking at Jack with an expression he knew too well. “Don’t often hear it referred to like that. You’ve been thpending too much time outthide Toontown, Jack. How far have you gotten on your Throw track?”

“Well, I’ve been rethently given a Birthday Cake lithenthe- “

“Eckthactly. If you’d been working on your gagth inthtead of all thith Imagiverthe bullcrap like me, you would have gotten that lithenthe _yearth_ ago.”

“’Ey, defending the Imagiverthe ithn’t thomething to be taken lightly. If it weren’t for me, Toontown would be in much more danger than the Cogth could ever whip up. Whenever you look at a thhadow and thee that it’th not growing tentacleth, think of me, okay?”

Jill let out a ‘pfft’, looking back at the newspaper. “Whatever you thay.”

With their daily dose of sibling repartee accomplished, Jack got up from the floor and smoothly took the newspaper from Jill’s unresisting hands. The frontline was already spreading the news of the approaching object, although the details were currently foggy and replaced with speculation. In a smaller box, the newspaper proclaimed another failure in the Silly Meter in Toon Hall; this time, they found Doctor Fissionton back in his house, eating breakfast at supper time. And it was only two o’clock.

Now a seasoned explorer of the worlds outside, Jack recalled similar shenanigans occurring in Old Albion, John and Adam Skelecoot’s Underworld residence, where undead scientists dabbled in experimental technology powered by Innovatium, the Anima Mundi of the Imagiverse. When they were right, they came up with brilliant gadgets which broadened the horizons of scientific possibility, according to them. When they were wrong, the fabric of reality paid a hefty price, and the scientists a slightly less price on account of having already expired.

Jack put down the newspaper, onto a coffee table next to the armchair, and looked out of the window. The sky was, as ever, a brilliant blue, and the fields that weren’t already occupied by houses was a fresh green. For an outsider, the land of Toontown was oddly simplistic, as if drawn by an underpaid background artist for a technicolour cartoon. For the Toons, it was simply home.

Jack sighed and went into the bedroom, where a wardrobe sat in one corner, next to a trunk which held various hats, glasses and other accessories. On the far side of the room sat two beds, next to one was a backpack, stuffed with Jack’s gags. Jack picked up the backpack, slinging it onto his back, and headed off into a bright afternoon to catch up on his gag training and Cog crushing.


	4. The False Falling Star

Meanwhile, as Jack went onto the various streets of Toontown and confronted the familiar threat, the orb drew closer with each hour, flashing with untapped energies. At this moment in time, no one knows what powers this artefact held, only of its religious significance and connection to an ancient god. They are about to find out.

The next morning, the false falling star landed north of Blam Canyon. Some said, as it drew close enough to be seen by the naked eye, that it travelled with the sound of a wet finger travelling the circumference of a wine glass. Some said that it landed with a blue flash which travelled across the whole of Toontown.

In his house, Jack was taking a bite of a cream pie when he heard the sound of urgent knocking on his door. Putting the pie down, Jack went to the door and opened it, revealing a breathless Ogglevy.

“Did you see it?” Ogglevy croaked, after taking a few seconds to catch his breath.

“Thee what?”

“The star! You must have seen the flash at least!”

“Well, I’ve only jutht opened the curtainth half an hour ago- “

“Well never mind. We’ve just sent a team to investigate the crash site and I thought you’d like to join me. I’d like to get there before a crowd starts to gather.”

Not one to forgo an opportunity to evade his usual routine, Jack said, “Well alright then.”

The two set out, along roads which were organised radially, centred around the original town, now the capital which had been named Welcome Valley, from which the Toons expanded. From above, the Toon world looked like a solar system mapped onto a vast plain, with various Toontowns dotted around in varying distances from the centre, the rest of the plains occupied by the many estates.

The crash site of the object was situated where a relatively sparse estate once stood, now a large crater speckled with flung masonry and dirt. Unfortunately for Ogglevy, a crowd had already gathered around the crater, their eyes fixed on the glowing, bluish sphere which now hovered about ten yards above the crater. Closer to the rim was a group of scientists, bickering to each other and waving strange devices which blinked rapidly when pointed at the sphere.

Ogglevy lead Jack towards the group, elbowing his way through the technicoloured crowd, calling out things like, “Excuse me”, “Loony Labs Toon coming through”, and the like. As they got closer, Jack could make out snippets of the group’s nattering, “... the energy it’s generating! We could harness... it could power all the devices in Toontown... we can use it as a weapon against the Cogs...”

“Whatcha talking about here?” enquired Jack. The scientists turned to him, recognising Ogglevy with him. Now he was closer, Jack could make out the devices the Toons were holding. They seemed like your standard detectors, a box with a semi-circular gauge, a handle sticking at the bottom and two little rods sticking out the top. When held towards the crystal ball, the arrow shuddered violently towards the red.

“It’s astounding!” cried one of the scientists, a rabbit. “The readings are exceeding the diagram! It must be emitting at least a thousand Silly-Amps a second!”

“If we can pull it down and take it into the Labs,” said another scientist, a dog, “we can utilise it to power all of Toontown! A massive saving on hamsters!”

“Rubbish!” barked another, a pig. “This orb _clearly_ possesses great offensive capabilities! If we can harness it, we can blow the four Cog HQs sky high! We can get rid of the Cogs once and for all!”

Jack began to zone out from the cross-fire bickering of the scientists, Ogglevy now joining them, to look at the orb. Every so often, a jagged line of blue electricity leaped from the sphere and earthed itself into the dirt of the pit. It was rotating too, with a steady hum.

“I wouldn’t be too hasty with that thing,” pleaded Ogglevy. “It is clearly an extra-terrestrial object! We do not know what it could do!”

“I believe,” said the pig, “that it is our duty – in fact, our _job_ – to find out!”

“Very well, but we should leave the suggestions on using it until _after_ we do some tests on it!”

The hum was increasing in pitch now. If he looked closely, he would see that the orb was also rotating in a steadily increasing speed.

“Uh, guyth...”

“I highly doubt you should be the one in charge of investigating this object, Ogglevy!” snorted the pig. “Your skills lie in simply looking into the stars with that expensive telescope of yours! I doubt you have ever handled a _single_ electronic device in your career- “

“ _Guyth, the orb’th thpinning fathter!_ ”

The scientists looked at Jack with a suspicious look in their eyes, which quickly faded when they heard the increasingly-high hum coming from behind them and turned around. “By Disney!” exclaimed the rabbit. “He’s right!”

The blue lightning bolts earthing themselves into the dirt were occurring with rapidly increasing frequency as the hum grew louder and higher-pitched. The orb itself was now a circular blur, distorting the air around it, crackling with energy. Sensing danger, the crowd surrounding the crater began to stampede when...

_FZZZZZZ-PANG._

A deafening crash and a blinding flash stopped those who had their backs to the orb and momentarily blinded those who stood stock still, still facing it. When the purple colours swam out of focus and the ringing in his earholes ceased, Jack pulled himself from off the ground and edged closer to the crater. The orb was now almost completely silent, albeit still hovering over the pit, where a peculiar sight met him.

The crater was now half-full of what looked like a black thundercloud which had fallen from the sky. Blue lightning darted from within the cloud, into the cloud. Looking closer, Jack realised that the cloud was some sort of mini-cyclone, spinning without much rush around a central point right under the orb.

He was the first to see the intense, yellow eyes staring back at him from within the eye of the cyclone.

He let out a strangled yelp, staggering backwards into Ogglevy. The doctor was surprised to find that Jack was trembling. “What is it, Jack? What did you see?”

“It, it, it...” he stammered, before taking a gulp of breath and starting again. “There’th thomething down there, Ogglevy!”

Ogglevy stood silent for a moment, before letting go of Jack and staring down into the pit. He was the first to notice a steady rumbling sound coming from the eye of the cyclone, like the engine of a small plane firing up.

As Jack joined him, they watched in frozen horror as the thundercloud began to sprout a hill of sparking cloud. As others joined, he heard a Toon murmur something from within the crowd. Ogglevy’s mouth was wide open, his eyes glazed in fascinated fear. As the hill reached the sparking crystal ball, it dissipated, revealing the most peculiar sight.

The thing was at least humanoid, but its skin was a greyish colour. Upon seeing its cerulean lips, with two sharp fangs coming from under the upper lip, and its black mane, Jack realised that it was a woman. Upon realising this, his eyes finally registered her clothing; the strangest thing! It was of two different tones of orange, the front embroidered with a sun with jagged rays; a hood which protruded two candy-corn-like horns, one ending like a harpoon, the other like a crescent-shaped pincer; behind her trailed a two-tonged cape and a pair of large, blue, translucent wings which were blurry with rapid movement. The only thing that wasn’t orange was her red boots.

The entire sight may have been merely odd, if not humorous, if it weren’t for the expression on the woman’s face. She was looking around at the gathered Toons with the look of some vain deity, observing a collection of inferior beings whom she could easily wipe out without a second thought.

Jack was jerked out of his hypnotic trance when Ogglevy patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll take it from here,” he said kindly. He joined the other scientists, who were advancing towards the woman. She watched mildly as the pig scientist cleared his throat theatrically.

“Hello, spacefarer! I am Doctor Hamlet, member of Loony Labs, and these,” he gesticulated towards the other scientists, who were more aware of the woman’s predatory gaze, “are my colleagues. We would like to welcome you to our quaint world of Toontown, where you will surely find laughs aplenty. Of course, we are currently dealing with certain mechanical menaces, which I am sure we will be able to resolve soon. I recommend you see the- _can you stop nudging me, Zippers?_ – the Toon Hall, where we have recently finished our latest invention the – _Ogglevy, I’m trying to introduce our guest!_ – the Silly Meter, which has recently measured a considerable amount of Silliness in our zany world. _What is it now?_ ”

“Hamlet, are you even paying attention to the... the lady?”

The lady in question was now holding the orb in her hand with an unpleasantly coy expression on her face. The thundercloud was now hovering above her, the thunder now earthing itself into the orb. Suddenly, she began to gesture outlandishly, holding the orb in one hand while the other seemed to pluck strands of lightning from the ball and fling it into the cloud above. The orb then began to lift, into the thundercloud, where a blue light began to grow in intensity, until there was now a blinding light about two yards in diameter. The thunder grew louder, then...

_FZZZZZ-BOOOM._

In the light of his own destruction, Jack saw Ogglevy attempt to turn and run before the Loony Labs scientists were struck by an intense lightning bolt, reduced to nothing but ash.

For a brief moment, the crowd was silent, stunned by what would be the first demonstration of their mortality. Until now, they had never seen one of their kind sentenced to a state more severe than sadness. Now, it was clear that although they were near-invulnerable, they were not unkillable.

Shock gave way to terror. The crowd renewed its frantic escape from the site, tripping over themselves as the winged invader let loose more thunderclaps. One bolt struck directly into the back of a Dog’s head, turning his eyes and gaping mouth into floodlights before the rest of his body evaporated. One bolt made a chain between several Toons until they too were obliterated. Bolt after bolt, the woman struck again and again, taking down dozens of Toons in her bloodlust. Her expression now was of terrible glee, as if this vengeful deity was now raining her disdain on an unsuspecting village.

Within mere minutes, the crater was nearly deserted, the surrounding area a valley of soot and death, bodies speckled across the landscape where the bolt had not completely vaporised them. Where the lightning bolts were less-accurately flung, bushes and trees had burst into flame, their crackling the only sound in the plains.

In the midst of the chaos, Jack stood completely still, several yards away, petrified with an ungovernable terror. He watched as the girl – for his senses had been sharpened by fear, he realised that she looked considerably younger than was initially thought – glide gracefully onto the edge of the crater, leaving a trail of glittering dust which hung in the air, seemingly basking in the destruction she had laid. Something in the soot caught her eye, and she leaned down and picked something up. Putting on the square-rimmed glasses that had once belonged to one of the scientists, she turned her attention towards Jack, and his brain finally registered what was wrong with her eyes; in one eye, the pupil was surrounded by six, smaller pupils, making a total of eight. The two stood in silence, Jack’s eyes darting between the girl and the orb, then back at the girl’s face, which seemed to say, “Come on. Make your move. You won’t get far.”

In that moment, Jack turned and desperately ran for home. The feathers on his back threatened to climb into his back, awaiting the death that would surely catch up to him. Tripping over bodies and errant bricks, he briefly glanced back to see that she had not even moved; she continued to watch him, holding up the orb to her ear as if listening to it, though he heard no words come from it.

With the last of the watching Toons gone, the girl turned her gaze at the thundercloud, which was now rising higher into the air and growing. By the time the Toon reached his house, there was a large black cloud hanging over part of Toontown, about a mile in length. So unusual was the sight of dark clouds over any other area except the Cog HQs, that it took no time until news spread across the towns, bringing with it apprehension and dread. The few who had witnessed the arrival and survived told of a terrible full-scale fairy, harnessing the power of lightning using her crystal ball to unleash previously unseen destruction upon anything she encountered.

Soon, with no discernible source, a word began to filter into the rumour and gossip of fearful Toons. The more attentive of Toons noted the word as having almost never been used in Toontown outside children’s books and myths. It seemed that the word arrived entirely on its own, as if it was riding on the same object which brought the intruder.

The word was Troll.


	5. The Beginning of the End

A grandfather clock chimed the sixth hour, alone in the uneasy silence of the Quackers household. The chairs have been rearranged, the armchair, occupied by Jill, diagonally facing the sofa, where an uneasily-breathing Jack lied across, his eyes pointed right up at the ceiling. The sight of her brother in such distress nearly compromised Jill’s usually stoic demeanour, but she still clung to scepticism despite her brother’s convincingly detailed summary.

However, she was at loss on how to console him. She could point out the absurdity of an outside force attacking Toontown, but that was only grounded in the fact that it had never happened before, and she had a worrying feeling that, if this was the case, then they were way overdue on those grounds. She was also not the sort of person who patted the distressed on the head or shoulders and murmured ‘there, there’. Instead, she resolved to remain silent for a good few minutes after Jack shared his story.

At last, she said, “Well, hopefully the Rethithtanthe will take her out before thhe doeth any more damage.”

“I’m not thure about that,” said Jack miserably. “Pieth and water gunth aren’t alwayth viable weaponth againtht anything other than Cogth. I thpeak from eckthperienthe; I’ve been more of a thupport member of the Chothen Few, jutht providing a dithtraction tho that the otherth can deal the real damage. Bethideth, if you thaw what that girl wath capable of, you would know that uthing gagth againtht her would be like throwing rockth at a thundercloud.”

Jill shook her head irritably, standing up from her seat and going to the window, looking out into the distance where a large thundercloud was forming many miles away. According to Jack, that cloud, that abnormal entity of weather in Toontown’s regularly clear blue sky, was brought to Toontown by the orb, along with the presumed invader. Either way, it worried her like anything that stood against what she took for granted.

As she watched, there was a sudden succession of abnormally bright thunderclaps. She gasped, staggering back as she attempted to recover her vision. Behind her, Jack suddenly shuffled into a sitting position, looking at her, then out the window. Their gaze remained on the rumbling cloud as a mutual feeling of dread hung between them.

Later, it was reported that a freelance group of Toons had taken it upon themselves to confront the Troll fairy, as she was soon being referred to as, armed with high-tier wedding cakes and fire hoses. From the sound of the thunderclaps, it was apparent that their assault was entirely unsuccessful.

Soon, there was an article on the newcomer in the newspaper with the headlines “INVADERS FROM SPACE”. Accompanied by an unendearing artist’s illustration of the alien girl, a manic grin on her face as she beheld the glowing orb in her hand, it summarised the attack at the pit, imploring the population to stay far away from the site, and also to remain wary of the thundercloud that was expanding with worrying speed across Toontown. Already, there were reports of lightning bolts striking estates, obliterating houses and leaving no trace of their occupants. At nine o’clock, there was a mighty thunderclap akin to the one which had brought the alien into existence.


	6. The Culling Machine

The Toons slept fitfully that night, haunted by the existential dread which hung like a gargantuan shadow over the whole of Toontown, blacker than the starlit night. Those too terrified to sleep said that they heard something humming over their houses with terrible speed, although this was put down as insomniac delirium. Then others came around, claiming to have been looking out of the window when they saw a bright light, trailing a blue mist, dart across the sky in the direction of the Sellbot HQ, and this was put down to hallucinations of the same source. In his house, Jack was haunted by nightmares of a colossal dragon made of smoke and lightning sitting in the pit, breathing beams of pure light which incinerated the nearby trees and bushes and slaughtered retreating Toons.

The following morning, Jack and Jill both went out, in opposite directions, to fight the Cogs. Jill would travel Centre-ward, while Jack made his way towards the Sellbot HQ. They travelled, since the distance between one corner of the Tooniverse to the centre was already too substantial to travel by foot, through the use of portable holes, handheld rifts in space-time which allowed a Toon to travel to any place, any town. For many years, scientists from outside Toontown have pondered on how these holes functioned, and, more importantly, why the Toon would not just fall through his own pocket. The inventor, world-renowned Gyro Gearloose, explains simply, “"I simply reversed the progidossilation from the distillator of my convex reoscillatory mumpkatron, and presto! Portable hole! I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner!” In fact, it is theorised that the tunnels leading between certain districts and the Cog HQs (which are often many miles away) use their own version of these portable holes.

As the two left the house, they heard another thundering boom Sellbot-wards, but Jill reassured Jack that it was probably the VP falling from his roof again. Jack doubted this, but took her word on it, as it was much easier to agree with anything she said than to disagree. With a brief farewell, the siblings parted ways, on their perpetual fight against the dreary mechanical menace.

It was about midday when something utterly strange happened on the streets. Jack did not notice at the time, as he was arguing with a shopkeeper in Tenor Terrace who proposed to give him a larger gag bag if he could take down twenty four-story Cashbot buildings. But Jill was readying her water pistol against a Telemarketer, one of the lesser Sellbots, when the latter suddenly stopped midway through his double-talk and looked up to the sky. A tense, confused moment passed, Jill still locked in a crouched combat stance with her gun pointed, until the Cog turned to her and said, “Very sorry for this inconvenience, but I’ll have to cut our meeting short. Just got a call from the Headquarters asking for an impromptu meeting.”

“Wh... wha...?”

“Have your people call my people,” the Cog replied, as if to convey through this reused phrase that he has better things to do than fight his mortal enemy. On that note, a rod extended from his head, the fins on the top extending, and the Cog flew upwards on his propeller.

“W-wait!” Jill finally blurted out. “You can’t jutht leave! I thought you Cogth never back down! _Come back here, you oily thon of a bitch!_ ”

She took aim with her water gun and fired directly upwards at the retreating Telemarketer. Unfortunately, he had already gone high enough so that the stream could not reach, and Jill watched as a slowly expanding flower of water fell and struck her in the face. She stood there, frozen, soaking wet, until something finally snapped and she started yelling incoherently at the sky.

Meanwhile, having begrudgingly accepted his task, Jack set out and made way towards Donald’s Dreamland, a district in perpetual but cosy night. As he reached the crossroads, he noted that the Cogs were gradually disappearing, sprouting propellers and making their way into the sky towards their respective headquarters. It wasn’t until he turned right towards the tunnel that the sheer unusualness of this phenomenon registered in his head and made him stop for a moment. Looking back, he noticed a shopkeeper peering out of his door, followed by several other Toons who had watched the Cogs vanish into the air. Some wore an expression of relief, but the others, perhaps with more foresight, looked terribly worried.

Walking through the tunnel and into the Dreamland, Jack noticed that this street was empty as well. Ahead, half-shuttered windows resembled sleepy eyes in the buildings, which was just as well, as the houses bore more of a personality than you might expect. As he walked past a fire hydrant wearing a sleeping cap, the unusual silence of the street, void now of the metallic creaking and footsteps of the Cogs, grew to the point of being unendurable. The night, normally the sort of cosy darkness that one experiences when they are ready for a good night’s sleep, became a creeping, insomniac blackness which held only vague fear. Above, he realised that the night sky had in fact been blanketed by a thick, black cloud, sweeping from the Cashbot HQ (Every instance of Donald’s Dreamland is near the Cashbot Headquarters, regardless of whether the city is actually near the actual site), crackling with pent-up electricity.

Overwhelmed by the sudden silence, Jack staggered towards a door and leaned against it, recovering the breath which seemed to have escape him in his panic. His teeth chattered despite the lukewarm temperature. He looked up absentmindedly when something, a multitude of something, caught his attention. At first, he assumed it was the Cashbots heading towards their headquarters, but the shadows overhead, barely outlined in the clouds, were all the same shape – slimmer, more streamlined – and flew with more purpose than the cumbersome Cogs, accompanied by a faint noise similar to that of a jet engine.

Unnerved and more awake than before, Jack trudged on until the middle of the street, when he finally came to the late realisation that the Cogs would have likely left every building untaken in their absence. It finally dawned on him to internally ask the question; why were the Cogs vanishing out of the blue? Were they finally deciding to leave the Toons alone, or were they preparing for a more terrible assault on Toontown? Once again, he stopped, but this time, he reckoned that the noise overhead was getting louder.

With his senses sharpened by his exposure to the outside universe, he had already felt the thing a few yards away, emitting a sound like that of a very small airplane, before it did. Slowly, he turned around. Hovering higher than the lamp posts, so that it was still veiled in darkness, a vague humanoid form regarding him with glowing red, circular eyes, its feet emitting two streams of flame which supposedly kept it airborne. At first, he worried that the Cogs had released some new model, but when it landed, he noticed two ram horns protruding from a spherical, metallic head with a mane of dark-grey hair. Some form of metallic dress was built into its chassis, which bore an indigo symbol, which looked to Jack like a T with the top splitting into two curls, on the chest, while the lower half was an ankle-low skirt made of what must have been some sort of dark-grey fabric. As it strode towards him, he staggered backwards, aghast at the sheer oddity of this new machine.

After a few steps, however, it stopped, as if it had finally made a decision. Jack stopped too, for a few seconds which stretched with tension. Then, its eyes began to glow into an incandescent white and Jack threw himself sideways quick enough to turn mid-air as a beam of white light shot across the street and struck the building ahead. In narrative slow-motion, he saw the beam pierce through the door, and the building erupt into red flame, spraying masonry across the pavement.

For a moment, he sat there, more baffled than scared. Then, he turned to the machine and saw it staring back at him. He scrambled up, running down the street and turning down an alleyway. As he ran, he heard the machine release a deafening howl, “ULLA! ULLA!” He scrambled past neglected trash cans, slamming into the wall ahead and running down the alley to his right. Emerging from the alley, he saw that Toons were pouring from their houses, having heard the destruction that had happened only several houses away. They looked around bewilderedly, then several screamed as they saw another of the machines land, immediately letting loose a beam of light. Jack saw the Toons outlined in the brightness, and soon those outlines disintegrated. When the beam dissipated, all that was left was ash.

For a while, Jack stared in shock at the scene. Over the rooftops, more of the machines were hovering over the streets, lighting up the sky with these unearthly rays of heat; whatever the beams touched burst into flame, spraying debris from the sheer force of the Heat Ray, and sent billowing columns of smoke into the night sky. Soon, a thousand more Toons were joining the chorus of terror with their screams, which only slightly decreased in volume whenever the machines unleashed their eye-beams.

Only when the machine on the street began to advance did Jack’s senses recover enough for him to stagger back into the alleyway. This time, he tripped spectacularly over a trashcan, surely attracting the attention of the machine. Limping, he turned the corner and emerged from the opposite end. By a stroke of luck, it seemed that the other machine had disappeared, likely having business elsewhere in the city. Cautiously but quickly, Jack made his way back down the road, where bewildered Toons were also emerging from their doorsteps. He called to them deliriously to run as he did, and most of them had the sense to listen, and soon he had a group of Toons following him down the tunnel into the Playground.

Nerves were also fraying in the otherwise cosy plaza; people were staring out over the housetops at the shapes and lights in the sky, commenting nervously at the black cumulous pillars which were forming. A Rabbit mother comforted a crying child, a group of freelance Cog-Crushers bickered about how to confront these “new Cogs”, and many others cried out between each other in panic. Another supersonic cry of “ULLA”, reverberating across the entire city, and the cries grew louder and frantic.

After looking over the crowds, it suddenly reoccurred to Jack that he still had his portable hole in his pocket. Relieved for an easy method of escape from this madness, he took it out and threw it on the floor, where it landed with a sucking noise. Not caring too much about the destination, as long as it wasn’t too far from home, he jumped in.


	7. The Fireman

Soon, Jack had left this iteration of Toontown and was now trudging along the centre-wards road towards home. To his horror, he noticed that the black clouds, which were only previously occupying a mile-wide space around the pit, were now casting a shadow over a much greater space and now bleeding from the Sellbot HQ. Every so often, he saw a fleet of distant shapes high in the clouds fly swiftly across, few of them detaching from the flock and landing in various parts of the world. Already, he could see pillars of smoke rising from some of the cities and brief flashes of light which signalled even more death.

Despite the many fenced estates, he felt dangerously exposed, all to visible to whatever flew over his location. All the way towards his house, his thoughts circled endlessly around the feverish images that remained from that eventful encounter. Now out of imminent danger, he was now able to connect the new machines to the invaders. He was not yet sure on their precise goal, but whatever it was, it was presently clear that the Toons were not allowed in the picture, and were being exterminated accordingly. With a brief look back at the Sellbot HQ, he noticed, only barely through the clouds, that there were shapes emerging from that oil-spilled area, from the countless factories which littered the tainted grounds that housed the Cogs’ salesmen.

Eventually, tired and shivering, Jack made it into his estate. Passing through a gate, walking along a road that weaved through small hillocks which held the occasional house, Jack made it to the front door when he heard a shuffling noise from inside his house, followed by a sound much alike to a metal nut being tightened, but lower in pitch. Fearing that there was an intruder in his house, Jack pulled out his gag bag, retrieved a water gun, replaced the bag, fumbled at the door-handle and opened the door. The curtains were drawn, leaving the entire house in pitch darkness save for the area in front of the open door, but Jack saw a shape in the area behind the sofa, hunched over some contrivance which was emitting the metallic noise.

Instantly, the shape turned to the new source of light and saw a silhouetted figure aim something at it, breathing heavily. The former raised a hand. “Now, no need for fightin’,” it drawled sternly but amiably, “I’m only hidin’ here to fix my hydrant. Don’ need more water rustin’ up the bolts.”

Jack put down the gun, noticing with his improving night vision that the figure held a strangely-shaped wrench in its hand. By its feet laid a seemingly-normal fire hydrant. He stepped back to close the door, now leaving the house in total darkness. Instinctively, he wandered to a lamp when the voice said, “Don’t worry, I’ve got me a flashlight. Don’t want them things to think this house’s occupied, do we?”

After some rustling, the figure pulled out something cylindrical which let out a beam of light. Now illuminated, Jack could see that it was a blue Dog Toon, a Resistance Ranger telling from his dark-purple clothes and belt, with the odd addition of a fire helmet. A second later, the flashlight was directed at Jack as he was inspected. “Say, you look mighty familiar,” said the fireman. “Any relation to a Jill?”

Jack replied in the affirmative, as there was very little to distinguish between them besides one having eyelashes, adding that he was her brother. “Tho you know her?”

“She’s been a mighty fine help over the years,” said the fireman, smiling. “Can tell she’s eager to do her part. Demoted more Senior Cogs than I’ve been to the potty, and I’m pretty incontinent.” Chuckling jovially despite their current situation, he stood up and picked up the hydrant, putting it into the bag beside him. “You must be proud of her.”

“Well, thhe doeth more of that thtuff than I do, I mutht admit.” Sitting down on the armchair, he motioned the dog onto the sofa. “But I have to athk; what _happened_? What about the girl in the pit?”

The fireman’s lips tightened, his gaze aimed slightly downwards. “Beats me,” he finally answered. “They wiped us out clear as day. I was one of the Rangers sent to the impact area to form a cordon around the perimeter after we heard what happened. Part of the Hoser Squadron, as you can probably tell from my gadget. The plan was to make sure no Toon was to come near the crater, and that the troll didn’t come out. Funny thing was that there was a mighty big bang from the crater, kinda like a lightning strike in reverse, and when we went to investigate, neither the orb or the girl was anywhere in sight. Before then, we had heard that there was another of them aliens that emerged from a demolished house where another of them big lightning bolts struck – a male one, looked pretty bulky according to the scouts.”

To the occasional distant accompaniment of distant explosions and supersonic cries, he then went on to tell about how they went the direction that the orb travelled the night after. They too noticed the Cogs leaving prematurely, dismantling their buildings as they left, although it was more of a relief as they could save their ammunition on the invaders. At this point, they had not yet connected their departure with the invaders, otherwise they would have been visited with dread as they would contemplate the significance and reason behind their sudden disappearance.

They had managed to get between Thwackville and the Sellbot HQ, where they deployed their hydrants and unpacked their gags, when the first wave of androids attacked; about six of them hovered in front of them, while the other six flew ahead towards the nearby city. They did not immediately attack, but coldly regarded the assembled squadron as if they had been confronted by a deer. One of the Hosers took aim and fired his water hose at one of the machines, and from the sparks which immediately danced across its gyrating body and the following explosion, it was clear that these machines accordingly followed a common rule of robotics, in that they did not react well with water.

However, before they could continue their offensive, the machines, now decided on the threat these meagre creatures posed, quickly unleashed their eye beams and decimated the battalion, reducing the Rangers to ash and melting their hydrants. By sheer luck, the fireman who currently told this story narrowly avoided the initial offence and made a quick dash out of Dodge. Interestingly enough, he did not dwell much on how swiftly his comrades had been slaughtered, mainly because at this point, he was far more concerned on preserving his own self from extermination.

With the occasional cover of trees and houses, he had since been retreating with half a mind to report to headquarters, although from the speed that the machines travelled, it was likely they already know at this point. Along the way, he had seen errant beams of light strike from the sky and lay waste to dozens of houses; in his opinion, it was only a matter of time before the same fate came upon the very house they now hide in.

Unnerved by the details of the briefing, Jack remained silent. The fireman had told his tale, holding the flashlight up to his face in the way that campers often do when telling a spooky story, with an admirable tone of assurance and optimism which was the model attitude of all Toons, nearly entirely detached from the certain existential doom that the details meant for all of Toonkind. Suddenly, with the same effect of cold water being trickled down one’s back, a thought delivered its hasty message to his brain and ran. Jill. She was still out there, probably still looking for Cogs to smash. She was always eager to do her part, as the fireman mentioned. Her stalwart determination, he considered, may be the end of her.

Jack stood up suddenly. “I’m thorry, but we have to go,” he said to the fireman. “I need to find my thithter. Thhe’d probably be in Blam Canyon.”

He would have left at once, but the fireman instructed him to wait a minute more. He went to the window behind the sofa, momentarily peeking through the blinds. When he declared the route to be clear, then they went out, naturally carrying their gag bags despite the ineffectiveness of all but one type of gags within them. Again, they were bare to the skies, but for all the factories that the Sellbot HQ contained, they did not see an abundance of shadows in the clouds. Perhaps these robots took longer to manufacture compared to the Cogs, perhaps utilising far more advanced mechanisms within their blueprints, the most prominent being whatever grants them those Heat Ray eyes. By that logic, they should not worry about being utterly overwhelmed with flying machines, but by another line of reason, they should not be too careless in their tracks.


	8. In Blam Canyon

At this point, we should rewind time for a moment, specifically to the time when Jack first encountered one of the culling machines, but change the perspective to his sister, who had retired to the Town Centre in a huff. Here, she overheard a fair amount of gossip relating to the Cogs’ unprecedented departure. There was talk that the Cogs were preparing for a terrible assault, as overwhelming and as unexpected as the attack which practically started the entire war; the day of the Head Mayor Slappy’s inauguration. The memory of those mysterious metal men emerging from nowhere and sending the intended mayor into a state of sadness – the first instance of such a state – still lingers to this day. Since then, Flippy, Slappy’s competitor, took the reins for his rival and instigated a defensive against the metal men, then given the name of Cogs.

Many years have passed then, but the unseen disappearance of the Cogs instilled worry within the population, and soon rumours began to arise; rumours of the aforementioned, renewed offensive that would potentially reach the neighbourhoods and into the hearts of every city in Toontown. Personally, Jill did not purchase such stupid rumours; despite their cold eagerness to dominate, the Cogs have about as much creativity and actual ambition as a damp sponge.

The mood changed, if only slightly, when a breathless, singed Ranger came running into the Centre, crying out incomprehensibly about “metal girls with red eyes”. Clearly, this was a new Cog, thought the people initially. However, when the more level-headed Toons calmed him down enough to extract more details, the description of “ram horns” made them hesitate. Those who had heard of the massacre near the landed Falling Star took to spreading new rumours which admittedly held more truth; the invaders were working with the Cogs.

Soon, however, an official Toon Council dispatch was distributed across all twelve towns, through the cries of papertoons along the lines of, “Sellbot Factories Seized by Trolls! Metal Monsters Invade Thwackville! Toontown Under Siege!” The report told of the unsuccessful repelling of the new mechanical menace, armed with “beams of intense heat” which have laid waste to the city and massacred the Ranger squadron. More of the machines have been seen flying from the factory sites of the Sellbot HQ and show no sign of ceasing. On a last, desperate note, the Council have advised all Toons to evacuate to the Oval Ocean, the isolated ocean east of Splashport, where they will board delivered refugee space shuttles to retreat to the stars until the Troll menace has been dealt with.

The dispatch achieved the intended effect. Like a rising tide, the population panicked and ran for the sea. Houses and apartments were quickly emptied, shops closed, the Speedways shut. Streams of Toons choked the main roads of Toontown while the quieter roads buzzed with the roar of speeding motorcars. Among the crowds, Jill was swept along, as aimless as a cork in a rapid, hearing here and there the cry of “Heat Rays!” and “Disney be with us all!” As the fireman told his story to Jack, the Toons were already preparing for flight, by any means achievable.

Further along, the road forked, which eased the density of the crowds. Now able to think clearly, Jill was seized by a worry which threatened her along her journey. Jack. She hadn't heard of him since he left for Thwackville, which was now likely a smoking ruin. Did he escape when the machines attacked? Trudging along with a monochrome, beady-eyed Toon, a Toon from a distant generation, her mind was plagued by the image of her brother running through desolate roads, and the distant, red-eyed silhouette of a culling machine hovering behind him.

Eventually, the stream of Toons had made it out of the city and onto the curved road leading to the sea. Jill had to detach from the crowd, now packing the dirt road with thousands of hurrying, terrified animals, and walk besides it on the grass. Looking back, she too had noticed distant dots in the sky over Thwackville, lighting the sky with flashes that reminded her of the occasional fireworks that would sometimes be included in some of Toontown’s many parties. It is interesting to note that Toons can find many more reasons for hosting parties besides weddings and birthdays, to the point that parties were more or less spontaneous. Although she went to very few, she felt sorrow for having never made the most of them while they lasted.

By now, the clouds which were now pouring from both the Sellbot HQ and the crater were now covering about half of the sky, obscuring the vision of those who were now fleeing from other cities, from various trajectories towards the Oval Ocean.  It was becoming increasingly difficult to pick out individual Toons, so now the stream was just one, large multicoloured amoeba of panic travelling on two-thousands of legs, waving vague arms in the air, staring ahead with many wide eyes.

The crowd had also noticed the flashes in the sky, which were now emitting from adjacent towns, and had picked up the pace considerably. After some distance, Jill started to hear a strange squeaking noise coming from one stationary point on the road, the source of which could not be discerned from the numbers of rushing Toons. Looking closer, however, she realised that a pink Mouse Toon had fallen, and was now being trampled by the panicking herd. Jill tried to push her way into the crowd to pick her up, but the stream proved too rapid to cross, and she could only leave the Mouse to her terrible fate.

Never before in the history of Toontown had the Toons been subject to such destruction and animosity. While the Cogs simply aimed to keep their enemies dejected enough to slowly assert their dominion over the towns, the Troll Fairy sought only their extermination, and had gone for more direct methods. Now the targets of mechanical terrors armed with the most destructive weaponry they have ever witnessed, the Toons have abandoned their good will and charity in their fright, now nothing more than galloping lambs evading the sheepdogs by any means necessary. It was reaching dusk, and the rout of civilisation, the massacre of Toonkind, was in full motion.


	9. Blam Canyon Abandoned

Jack and the fireman arrived at Blam Canyon, coming in through Daisy’s Garden, just as it had been abandoned. The scent of primroses and lilacs filled the still air with a scent which almost preserved the beauty of this neighbourhood. The lampposts were fashioned into tall daisies and the cherry trees were in full bloom, as they've always had. The houses were painted in bright, vibrant colours and the Playground here mainly consisted of a circular hedge maze, where a large daisy head sat in the middle.

It was jarring to see this beautiful place so desolate and abandoned. Along the road to Toontown Central, there was little sign of the panicked rout which was currently heading to safety among the stars. Here and there, though, were items that others had dropped; a trainer, a stuffed rabbit, a melting ice cream. The bright houses themselves didn't show any change, so Jack could not tell whether their inhabitants had run like the rest or were still locked in, huddled together against the terror that was just approaching.

Along the way, in hushed tones, the fireman made an admirable attempt to stave off the silence with banter, telling the solemn duck about how he had trained under the Rangers to wield the weapons-grade fire hoses, the likes that aren't sold to the common population via the Gag shops, as easily as one wields a pen. There was certainly plenty of detail that he neglected to leave out, having already talked for a half hour, so Jack conceded by zoning out, responding only in variations of “Mmhm”, “Aight”, and the like. Even with a fellow voice to see him through the otherwise silent streets, he still felt the same dread he felt at Thwackville’s Dreamland.

Not only dread, however, but the fear that still remained which had set him on his journey into this silent city. Reason vied to convey to him that Jill would have left with the others to safety, many miles away from Blam Canyon at this point. It had to compete with the unerring desire to see her again, as the clouds of war sought to obscure the bright sky of their world and threatened to smite them from the material plane. Even though it was clear to him that wandering the abandoned town was not only counter-productive, but also put him in danger when the culling machines were currently on the prowl, he found that he didn't dare turn back in case he had found hope of seeing his sister again.

Some distance into the street, they came across a lone paper, pinned to a flower lamp post by the whistling wind. It turned out to be the official dispatch which had set the entire population to flight, a plan they did not wot of whilst huddled in the house. “Well, there’s your answer,” said the fireman. “Everyone’s headin’ to safety, as they should. I bet that’s where your sister’s headin’ too.”

A sense of urgency finally filtered into Jack’s conscience. It dawned on him that if he did not travel fast, he and his companion would be left behind. “We gotta get there fatht!”

Now racing against the proverbial clock to reach the evacuation site, they darted through the streets, passing the Toontown Central playground and heading to Donald’s Dock, where they would leave the city and make their way down the circular road to the Oval Ocean. As they ran through Punchline Place, far behind them, they heard the terrible thud of the Heat Ray striking the buildings they had only just left. With yet another reason to run, they took as much to their heels as they could.

They made it to the playground when they saw a substantial collection of Rangers, units sent as one of the Toons’ final efforts in suppressing the attack, gathered next to the local Toon HQ, readying their gags and discussing strategies. For a moment, the sight of such a concentration of military hardware reassured Jack; pies were weighed on hands, hydrants were being maintained, large magnets tested on the various lamp posts in the playground. Joining the fireman, he headed towards a squad of Rangers, likely the squad leaders and strategists, who were sitting in front of a makeshift blackboard where a yellow Duck was scribbling stick figures and curved lines; the invaders, for example, were distinguished by the spiral-like horns and skirts.

The two debriefed their individual encounters with the monsters, who they deemed invulnerable to any gag that wasn't on the Squirt track. This vital information gave way to new diagrams, much altering to strategies, and a lot more bickering. While there, Jack was told that another company were taking the route back through Toontown Central and into Daisy’s Garden in an attempt to form a frontline to block the invaders. It seemed their entire plan had the lynchpin of the machines not using their ability of flight to their advantage, which, to Jack, seemed foolishly optimistic. Meanwhile, a few of their numbers were searching through the houses of the Brrrgh, to check for any Toons that were either too scared to run or were comatose through the whole ordeal.

While the fireman was being interviewed about his encounter, Jack went to a group of sappers and made inquiries about the evacuees of the city, mainly of a fairly notable sea-green duck who, I don’t know, probably pathhed thith way a moment ago. A few apologies and scratching of heads told him that no, they haven’t seen Jill, but they were certain she would have joined those who had fled if she had any sense, which was undeniable. Only partially reassured, he rejoined the Rangers by the blackboard, where the fireman had joined the Duck and passing the chalk between each other. It occurred to him that the fireman’s intention of returning to his superiors has been accomplished and that he will likely stay and leave Jack to head out alone. Although apprehensive with this thought, he was secretly glad to avoid the fireman’s tiresome chatter.

Bidding the Rangers farewell, Jack turned to the street leading out of the city, a fairly unpopular street called Angler Avenue. It is interesting to note that these exit streets are unmarked on any of the town maps, and indeed any official mention of these roads are scarce. Perhaps the Toons are more accustomed to the use of portable holes which could take them to any neighbourhood and any city without bothering with the roads in between, so before the invasion, when it was inadvisable for a multitude of Toons to use these pseudo-quantum devices at once at the risk of tearing some sort of hole in space-time, it was rare to see more than a few Toons travelling between cities on foot, either because they came from a time before these new-fangled devices, or that they were of the athletic type.

It was only halfway down Angler Avenue when Jack started to hear screams from behind him, followed by the high-pitched screech which accompanied the culling machines’ Heat Ray. He turned back and saw that streams of smoke were drifting up from the playground, and at their apex, the robots, hovering over the centre with their jet-powered soles, letting loose their beams of death. A clamour could be heard from ground level, the yells and screams of the Rangers as they threw errant streams of water which the machines, smarter than their initial encounter now, swiftly dodged.

Jack stared at the airborne monsters for a few seconds before turning back and running through the weaving street. As he ran, he heard the sound of those jet engine feet getting closer as if one of the machines was following him. When he looked back, however, he could not see nor hear a thing in the sky, except that the billowing clouds above were spreading at a much more rapid rate. He had stopped with his back to his side of the large U-shaped curve in the road which, if it had curved more, would have made a considerable roundabout around a bundle of houses. The street, in its entirety, was like a coiled snake.

Several yards behind him, he heard the jet engine noise start up again, for a second, before stopping again as a culling machine landed at the U-turn. He turned around, shocked. How did it pass him so quickly? Did it somehow silence its soles so that he couldn’t hear it? The feminine machine strode towards him, not yet firing its Heat Ray, but instead stared straight at him with its lidded ruby eyes, as if it were a cat playing with its prey. Fear unfroze him and he darted beside him into the alleyway that served as a shortcut through the U-shaped curve, making several turns through it until he reached the end, but he didn’t leave. Leaning against a wall at the final turn, he pulled out his bag and rummaged through it. Making faint glugging noises, he pulled out a large tapped bottle of seltzer water, a classic gag which stood around the middle of the Squirt track. Slinging the backpack onto his back, he leaned on the wall, bottle at the ready, waiting.

Eventually, he heard slow footsteps approaching the corner and he fancied he heard the sound of grinding gears emanating from the machine. He took several steps away from the turn, aimed, and, when the machine emerged, its eyes emitting a haunting crimson glow and its indigo lips curled into a sharp-teethed snarl, he let loose a jet of water which knocked it back a foot. Immediately, the robot went into a spasm, arcs of electricity jumped across its body, its eyes blinking erratically. For a moment, Jack stood there, rather proud over his small victory over the invader. Then, with that slow realization that comes immediately before an accident, Jack’s face fell.

From the vantage point of someone reaching the end of the U-turn, it would seem that the alleyway simultaneously emitted a loud red glow and spat out a duck which flew through the air, backwards and headfirst, and across the street. Jack suffered several bounces off the concrete from his head before sliding to a stop. For a moment, a ring of stars spun a few inches above his abused cranium as he lay unconscious. A groan was heard, then he raised himself onto his elbows, shaking the stars off his head. Immediately after, a spherical, metallic object landed a few yards in front of him with a heart-stopping _thud_ , bounced into the air, and then landed closer and quieter. As it slowed, he saw that it was the disembodied head of the incapacitated culling machine, its horns preventing it from rolling any further and its hair cushioning the back of it.


	10. Thunderchild

The evacuation was now in full motion. The sun was starting to set on the increasingly shrouded horizon, painting the landscape blood-red. From above, the cities bore resemblance to emptying anthives, their occupants fleeing in torrents towards the ocean. Their homeworld now under attack, the Toons were slowly adapting to the new state of affairs; every Toon looked after himself and only himself, and will push, shove and kick if it meant preserving his being. From the streams came shouts and cries as the population became more haggard and desperate, and consequentially impatient.

Deciding that she would not make much progress trying to ride the tide, Jill broke out through the plains, past the estates whose occupants were still coming to grips with the current events. When questioned by these bewildered individuals, she gave brief reassurance and directions towards the Oval Ocean before continuing her reroute. Eventually, she arrived at the further road-ring from the centre, exhausted by her trek. She took a few seconds to gather her breath when she heard a loud buzz dart from side to side in front of her. She looked up, then she saw a blurred shape zoom down the road. Before it vanished, she glanced at the retreating shape and saw that it was a motorcar, its occupant vague but definitely yellow.

Then another motorcar past her, and she made her decision. Standing up, she walked to the side of the road and stuck her arm out, in the universal gesture of the dreaded hitchhiker. The first few times, the cars didn’t even slow down, and one threatened to take her arm with it. She was soon thinking of abandoning this search for help when she saw another motorcar, travelling notably slower than the others. Its occupant saw her and eased on the brakes. As it approached her, she saw that the driver was a small, elderly Pig, monochrome and beady-eyed, with a colourless daisy stuck on her hat. There was a considerable amount of Rubberhoses, as they were referred to by the younger generations, in Toontown, often making sharp comments on how they didn’t have Cogs back in their day and the other sorts of things old folk say. The elderly Pig, however, simply bore an expression of anxious generosity.

Silently, the Rubberhose patted the empty seat beside her, gesturing to Jill to hop in. A few seconds later, they were making considerable progress down the curved road. The first few minutes of the journey were leaden with awkward silence, caused partially by the communication gap between the two generations, but also by the severity of their situation. It was broken by the Rubberhose, who glanced at Jill as if she had only just noticed her and said, “Aren’t you the gold medallist of the Cog-Control competition last year?”

“Oh, yeth, yeth,” Jill replied, rather caught off-guard by the sudden question. “Yeth, I… I've got a few of thothe gold medalth.” Her humble tone, coupled with an understatement, would have surprised Jack.

“Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, love,” said the Pig sincerely. “Always inspiring to see a gal fighting against those metal men so admirably.”

A motorcar zoomed past them and Jill watched it pass, a thought running across her mind. The thought was; you don’t often see motorcars with more than one seat. Or rather, you don’t often see a two-seater occupied by only the driver.

“Thay,” she said slowly. “Why do you have a two-theater, if you don’t mind me athking?”

“Oh, I'm married,” the pig responded simply.

“Uhhh,” said Jill, who was suspecting the answer before asking the question, “Then… where’th your husband?” She watched the Rubberhose carefully for any change of expression. She noted the tinge of sadness in her eyes, but admired her otherwise steady tone;

“Well, last time I saw him, he was heading to Thwackville to get his dentures checked. I would have gone to get him, but at that point there was this huge crowd leaving the city.”

“Ah.” The pair sat in silence again, the air now brooding with gloomy thoughts. After a moment, Jill said, “My brother wath altho heading to Blam Canyon. Haven’t theen him thinthe.”

The elderly pig gave her an understanding look and patted Jill’s knee. “Oh, I'm sure he’s alright. If he’s anything like you, I'm sure he would be out of there as quick as a wink when those things arrived.”

Jill looked at her, dazed. “How can you be tho thure? Have you theen how fatht thothe machineth are? They fly ath fatht ath a rocket!”

“Well, I’m sure they won’t be flying for long.”

“What maketh you think that?”

“Those clouds overhead are spreading rather quick. It’ll be pouring with rain soon, and I don’t think those machines will last long in the rain.”

Jill stared at her, amazed by her conviction in this prediction despite the fact that Jill hasn't seen a drop of rain fall from those ominous clouds. But she remained silent; she heard the undertones in the Rubberhose’s voice and recognised it as the voice of someone who was fooling themselves for comfort. She decided to let the little pig believe her own lie. “Yeth, I'm thure they won’t.”

Another moment of heavy silence followed. Several times, Jill looked over her shoulder, across the plains and towards the direction of Blam Canyon, as if looking for any sign of the machines. For such destructive and consequentially noisy weapons of destruction, it would have been surprising that it wasn’t so easy to determine where they were and where they were heading if it wasn’t for the clouds; Jill concluded that the robots travelled between cities via the black clouds, undetectable to the common eye. Half a mile later, they were passing between Whoosh Rapids and Splat Summit and heading towards Splashport, where they could go around the roundabout road that circled the perimeter of the city and head eastward to the ocean.

A distant thud caused Jill to look back. About a mile behind them was Gulp Gulch, the southern-most town of Toontown. It was a small object in the distance, but she could just about see pillars of black smoke drifting from various parts of the city, as well as brief flashes of light. They had invaded Gulp Gulch. Any moment now and they would be heading in their direction.

She turned to the pig. “Uh, we might have to thpeed up a bit, Mithhuthh…”

“Baconstones, dearie,” said the pig helpfully.

“Mithhuthh Baconthoneth, we might have to thpeed up _now_ , if that’th fine with you,” said Jill more urgently.

Mrs. Baconstones turned briefly to look behind her before quickly turning back around again. “Oh, right.” Shuffling closer to the wheel so that her stubby legs could apply more pressure to the accelerator, Baconstones set her car into a higher gear. It was apparent that she was not used to driving at this speed, and swerved when a more confident if reckless driver zipped past them. From this point onward, she didn't have time to look behind her as her eyes were now nailed to the city ahead.

Jill looked back again. She saw a dot above Gulp Gulch detach from several others and lower itself to the road, growing bigger and bigger with each second. Where it passed motorcars that had been too late to leave, orange and yellow balls of fire erupted before her eyes, flinging wheels across the plains at each side. She heard screams from the other drivers in the distance, some cut short as the Heat Ray struck their cars.

Quickly, she reached down to the bag by her feet and rummaged. Behind her, she heard the machine let loose a supersonic howl as she retrieved a water pistol from the bag. Keeping the pistol pointed down by her legs, she looked back. Now she could see two ruby circles as the robot approached headlong, its dark-grey mane billowing in the wind with two ram horns protruding from the front of its head. She waited until she reckoned that the machine was close enough, then she aimed the water pistol and pressed the trigger.

At this speed, and with the machine travelling in a similar velocity, the stream of water that was fired would have hit it at twenty yards. The stream hit the machine right between its ruby eyes, and Jill saw it veer in its flight, swerving left and right, upwards, then in a curve into the plains to its right, exploding as it hit the ground.

She let out a triumphant cry, pounding the air with her fist, and she was joined by other drivers that were further away. Beside her, she heard a hesitant voice ask, “Um, is it safe to slow down now?”

“No, keep it going!” Jill cried. “We've got to get to the evacuation thhuttleth before they’re full!”

Soon after, they had reached Splashport and were now travelling to the Oval Ocean with considerable speed. It would seem that they were ahead of the approaching mass of Toons, by a miracle. Behind them, they could barely hear the thud of the culling machines’ emergence in the other cities. Perhaps, thought Jill, some had already found one of the streams of Toons heading to safety and were doing their terrible deed.

The Oval Ocean is Toontown’s only ocean, where it was possible to sail to any of the four corners of the world, viz. the Cog HQs. However, given the vast width of the sea, it would be near impossible to see one HQ in one corner from the opposite HQ. As it is, the Oval Ocean is home to all sea life that can otherwise be found in various fishing ponds within the cities, and is often a site for cruisers who desire prolonged exposure to the sea air, and pretty much the sea everything.

Lined up by the shore, some large and rustic-looking, others massive and more grandiose, were the evacuation space shuttles. By the gangplanks leading into the vessels were guards, some of which were Rangers. The rest were humanoid skeletons, their frames and skulls varying slightly but all of the bulky build of guards everywhere. Jack had told Jill of these skeletal figures; they came from the Underworld, the secluded realm of the dead, originally from a past time of a world containing many iterations of itself. The Skeletorians, they were called, now reside in the decadent remains of their empire, shrouded in soot, building brass engines powered by the elusive element known as Innovatium. Jack knew this, he explained, because he’s friends with their leader.

Guiding Mrs. Baconstones, whose stubby legs impeded her speed, Jill headed to one of the smaller vessels, guarded by a stocky skeletal creature dressed in a rough but official-looking outfit and hat. In front of him was a small queue of Toons, some burdened with boxes and bundles containing their valuables, others holding the hands of their relatives. It seemed that his only purpose was to ensure they boarded the vessel in an orderly fashion. Jill suspected that his job would become considerable difficult when the rest arrive.

As she lined up, she heard the guard’s gravelly voice, “One bag per person, son.”

“But these are my fishing trophies! I can’t leave without them!”

“You won’t have a head to leave with if you don’t drop those immediately,” growled the guard.

“Look, can’t I just take one of these boxes?”

“What about that bag on your back, eh? What’s in that?”

“Oh, some pies, water bottles, a bamboo cane, a fire hydrant- “

“So, you can’t fit your trophies in that, then?”

Jill turned to her companion, her expression very clear on her opinion on vain idiots. Baconstones’ returning expression was that of empathetic understanding.

“We can’t let each person bring more than one box or bag into the shuttle,” explained the guard impatiently. “Otherwise, there wouldn't be enough space for passengers.”

“Well… isn't there somewhere that you can store my trophies?”

The guard answered in that specific leer of hired muscle anticipating that his next statement will win the Humorous Comeback of the Year Award, “Well, this is a beach. How about we buried your boxes somewhere and you can mark where they are so you can find them again?”

After the trophy owner was dealt with, the queue moved with considerable speed. Soon, they had made it to the gangplank and were in the shuttle. A short and cramp corridor, riddled with pipes and valves, lead into a modest-sized atrium in the middle of the ship, populated by a small group of passengers, the walls on both sides full of porthole windows to allow view of the outside. It was clear that this wasn't a luxury vessel; instead of cabins, the passengers all had to bundle together in the damp interior.

Jill and Baconstones positioned themselves next to one of the windows to their left, looking out to the other shuttles. The monochrome pig was not tall enough to see through it, but Jill was, and stared out across the line of unearthly vessels with anxious fascination. Like a majority of Toontown’s population, she had never set foot outside of her world, instead relying on the accounts of her well-travelled brother to give her an idea of this “Imagiverse” he talked about. Jack’s description of this strange outer realm painted it as a perilous gulf, containing within it more terrible things than the Cogs she had originally considered the worst threat to Toontown. It was probably because of this, as well as her dedication towards confronting the mechanical menace of her homeland, that she never considered leaving until now. Rather ironic that her motivation to leave was because of those cosmic threats her brother mentioned.

An hour later, one of the swarms arrived, bringing with it another batch of terrified and uncooperative refugees. Soon, there was a long line of Toons pouring into the vessel and after a while, Jill had to elbow and nudge for standing room. The stink of fear was permeating the walls and it was looking more like a factory farm, packed with panicky farm animals, than a vessel of sapient evacuees. There was anxious chatter amongst the growing crowd, as well as isolated sobbing from one corner of the room. Jill found herself surprisingly glad she didn't choose a larger shuttle to board.

It seemed like mind-numbing infinity until a disembodied, jolly voice rung from various points of the room, sourcing from the flared, trumpet-like devices that she hadn't noticed until now; “Welcome aboard, Toons! If those by the gangplank can please step away from it, we are about to close the hatch.” This was met with more crowded shuffling, and from the other end of the corridor which had led into the room, Jill heard the sound of grinding metal followed by a final _clunk_. “Thank you. We will shortly be departing, so if you can just sit tight and relax, we can be out of here in no time.”

The packed Toons collectively sighed with relief. Well, half of them did, the other half cried some more.

 Suddenly, there was a loud screech which caused Jill’s heart to almost leap out of her beak. She turned back to the window and saw the whistles of some other shuttles join the chorus, letting out long and loud puffs of steam. After a minute of this, the room shuddered, shaking the body of Toons like a barrel of salmon aboard a minecart. Their legs buckled under the sudden increase in gravity as the shuttle lifted off from its legs, reaching forty yards high until it stopped, hovering in the air. Out of the window, Jill saw more of the smaller vessels lifting into the air besides them, then the larger behemoths. Then, as one fleet, the evacuation shuttles flew forward, tilting upwards in a thirty-degree angle as they headed towards the sky.

The chatter of the refugees, paused momentarily for this first flight, resumed in the approaching hope of escape. Their home now in the midst of destruction, and the sky now almost completely blotted out by the clouds of the Troll Fairy, they drew their attention towards the windows, looking out towards their former home.

Then, from the distance behind the shuttle, came the dreaded cry, “ULLAAAAAA…”

The crowd instantly panicked, crying out in terror as their chatter grew more desperate. The machines had found them. It was over.

The vessels began to travel faster, spreading out until they were each about twenty yards apart. From her vantage point, Jill saw one of the smaller vessels get struck by a beam of light, exploding into metal scraps and red flame tinged with a strange blue. The Toons cried out at the distant thud. They hugged each other and sobbed, hoping against the odds that their shuttle was spared. Jill had expected, from the moment that ship was struck, that theirs would surely follow. But after a few minutes, they were met with a surprising lack of death. They did, however, hear a sound from right behind their vessel, like some strange mortar firing its charge, followed by similar sounds from the other shuttles.

Had they any view behind them, they would have seen what had prevented their demise.

Upon receiving a message from the now-late Ogglevy concerning the unidentified object from the Edge, then another, more desperate message from the Head Mayor concerning the Culling Machines, Jonathan C. Skelecoot ordered his military department to send an evacuation fleet to escort enough Toons out of Toontown. Long neglected navy vessels were refashioned into flying machines with commendable speed, and new models were also designed specifically for the task at hand. Although the habit of fatigue still clung to their frames, the engineers spent countless hours at work on the fleet.

“Direct your people to the sea,” was John’s reply to the Mayor. “Get them aboard our ships. They will be protected.” What he had neglected to mention was what they were being protected _by_. After all, they were only sending the refugee shuttles, weren’t they?

As well as fitting thrusters and Innovatium engines and so forth, the shuttles were also fitted with a rear “portal flare”, as they were called. When danger approached, the flares discharged their contents, which glowed a bright green and flew towards a point some way away from behind the vessel in the middle. When they connected, the resulting detonation tore a dimensional hole which lead to another hole in a vast hangar back in Old Albion, formerly London. Waiting in the hangar was the large, flying ironclad _Thunderchild_ , accompanied by a fleet of smaller fighter planes. As the exit point of their portal opened, they set to flight.

What the machines would have seen, as they flew further out to sea on their pursuit of the retreating shapes, was each shape letting loose a pinpoint of green light, heading outward at first, but then flying into each other, or rather, the lights at the side flying towards a point in the middle light’s trajectory. They struck each other, and a massive circle of swirling green formed in the air, like a Toon’s portable hole but larger and more colourful. The machines stopped, watching the circle. There was a moment when the two ends connected, and the view into the exit point seemed like lightyears being scrunched down to metres.

Then, slowly at first, a massive metal bulk emerged from the portal, its bow piercing through the surface like a knife. A large turret stood in front of the squat command tower, its captain looking out towards the small figures in the distance. Behind the tower was a trio of even taller smokestacks, standing between two masts. At the sides of the ironclad were a multitude of smaller turrets, and stretching to the back of the vessel were long thrusters emitting a blue jet flame. By the time _Thunderchild_ had emerged enough for the machines to see the start of the thrusters, smaller shapes darted out from around the dreadnought, humming like enraged, metallic wasps.

While the ironclad flew ponderously, the fighters spun and darted towards the culling machines. In little time, they were close enough to open fire. Stray beams of light were sent in their direction, but for the first few minutes, the fighters dodged and weaved past, flying around the invaders like electrons in an atom. A spray of bullets here, and a machine erupted into flame. Then another. At this point, more machines were approaching from the shore, but the planes kept the machines’ attention drawn to them, taking down several more. From the distance, and with the obscurity of the clouds and the approaching night, it would have been difficult to discern what was happening except for the bright flashes of the destroyed machines.

The first wave of machines was down to its last member before the second arrived. They let loose their Heat Rays, cutting down several of the fighters. Their initial advantage of surprise past, it was becoming clear that the planes were unable to keep up with the attack. A beam of light struck a fighter, obliterating its pilot and sending its fragments spiralling into the sea. The last of the first wave was destroyed, but the approaching group now had the advantage. While they lost a few of their members, the machines had destroyed the fleet of planes.

As they watched the last fighter, its left wing torn from its body, spiral into the ocean, a sudden eruption made them turn, and the machine at the front was obliterated by the approaching shot. As they were occupied by the fighters, _Thunderchild_ had now gotten close enough to fire. Its front turret fired again, and a machine at the side was also taken down. Forthwith, they began to fly towards the iron titan as it fired in five-second intervals. As one got closer, one of the machines fired its Heat Ray directly at the turret, causing its barrels to spring out of its base and fly off into the distance.

The culling machines began to circle around the airborne ironclad, sending stray beams that drove scars into its hull. The port and starboard guns spoke, lighting up the sky and enveloping the battle in a cloud of smoke that partially obscured the dreadnought. Within the hull, cries echoed through the corridors, gunners fussed with their turrets, the engineers near the Innovatium engine fiddled with valves and wrenches, and all the while, the increasingly frantic voice of the captain echoed through countless gramocons, the same sort that were fitted into the refugee ships, adding to the panic.

The battle was short-lived, however, when a culling machine fired its Heat Ray straight through the front part of the hull, through the engine room and through the engine itself. Once again, there was a moment of narrative slow-motion as the engineers turned to see the pillar of flame, white and terrible in its obscurity, melt through the iron walls, across the room and into the side of the Innovatium engine. On the faces of the more expressive skeletons was the short-lived expression of ‘Oh shit…’

The machines were thrown back as the bow of the _Thunderchild_ erupted into a technicoloured flame, letting loose the momentary sound of spacetime being brutally distorted by the sudden release of Imagiversal energy. The smokestacks flew into the air on pillars of fire, the masts tumbled onto the decks, lashing ropes knocking off skeletal seamen, and the doomed _Thunderchild_ , with the same ponderous speed, started to pitch forward towards the sea. The captain, dragging himself up after the initial explosion, saw the horizon pivot over the ship, the view replaced by churning waters far below.

Wandering down the road between Blam Canyon and Whoosh Rapids, stumbling in the dark and looking over his shoulder, Jack had little view of the sea, obscured as it was by the towns, estates and hillocks. He did, however, notice a great flash in the direction of the Oval Ocean, followed a few seconds after by the most peculiar noise that could only be more accurately described as an exploding, cosmic guitar screeching in a high note, followed by the metaphorical fingers sliding up the neck and sending the sound into bowel levels. He stopped, staring towards the direction from which the noise emanated. It seemed as if now, the birds had hushed and the leaves on the trees had stopped rustling, as if to listen towards the source of the noise.

Then, as his gaze drew higher, he noticed a group of shapes, only noticeable from the minuscule squares of light attached, sailing into the only remaining gap in the clouds. As he watched, he saw the last shape, one of the smaller ones, pierce through the storm just as it closed behind it, never to open again. In that moment, as he saw the last remaining shred of sky obscured, Jack knew a terrible, irrational fear. The clouds of war had now completely smothered their world, and he was now no longer the member of the dominant race of this world, but a mere animal under Troll domination.

A mere moment after the heavens had closed, he heard a faint howl from the ocean, the dreadful siren of the Machines, “ULLAAAAAA!”. It was joined by the machines over Splashport, then Blam Canyon, then Welcome Valley, then Gulp Gulch, until every city rang with the exultant cries of the invaders. A significant portion of the Toons had escaped, heading towards safety amongst the stars. _Thunderchild_ , along with its fighter fleet, had vanished beneath the waves, taking with it the Toons' last hope of victory. A mighty clap of thunder lit the sky, not for the last time, bringing with it another of the Trolls, now entering a world that will show no resistance.

Toontown belonged to the Trolls.

 

TO BE CONTINUED…


End file.
